Dog Leash Gear Hoist

[dalton916]

Are y’all using the retractable to help pull down rope?

Yes.

I use it pull up my bow or rifle. Then I lower the bow or rifle with the tag end of the rappel line and use the dog leash to pull down the rappel line.

 

[2Sloe]

I took a Harbor Freight dog leash and put 40’ of Dynaglide in it. Putting a full 40” on it is not as easy as it seems. For 20-30’ it would be much easier. To put a full 40’ on it, you have to take the original cord off, tie the Dynaglide to the center, put all of the original cord except about 4 ft back on the reel, tape over that, wind the spring, then retract the Dynaglide. You need the original cord back on to increase the diameter of the take up spool. If you don’t do that you run out of spring before it retracts the entire 40ft. Obviously, if you don’t need 40’ you could probably forgo putting the original line back on. I had to do that to retract the last 8-10 feet. It works just fine, but I eventually just started climbing and descending with everything on my back so I didn’t see carrying it just to pull down my rope.

 

[Iron_llama]

I took a Harbor Freight dog leash and put 40’ of Dynaglide in it. Putting a full 40” on it is not as easy as it seems. For 20-30’ it would be much easier. To put a full 40’ on it, you have to take the original cord off, tie the Dynaglide to the center, put all of the original cord except about 4 ft back on the reel, tape over that, wind the spring, then retract the Dynaglide. You need the original cord back on to increase the diameter of the take up spool. If you don’t do that you run out of spring before it retracts the entire 40ft. Obviously, if you don’t need 40’ you could probably forgo putting the original line back on. I had to do that to retract the last 8-10 feet. It works just fine, but I eventually just started climbing and descending with everything on my back so I didn’t see carrying it just to pull down my rope.

I was toying with doing the same thing. From your description, it doesn't sound like the juice was worth the squeeze.

 

[2Sloe]

I was toying with doing the same thing. From your description, it doesn't sound like the juice was worth the squeeze.

Torn on that one. For a full 40’ probably not. For 40 you have to stretch a low quality item to the bleeding edge and it has to be just right for it to work. For 30 or less, better return there. I wanted 40 because I do climb to 30’ occasionally. Also I didn’t want to cut my 40’ down to 30, it not work or last then I have a 30’ instead of 40’. On the other hand, it’s a $6 item and if you already have the dynaglide and like to piddle around all year with your gear, I would say that your not really losing anything if it doesn’t work out.

 

[JBDaddy]

Torn on that one. For a full 40’ probably not. For 40 you have to stretch a low quality item to the bleeding edge and it has to be just right for it to work. For 30 or less, better return there. I wanted 40 because I do climb to 30’ occasionally. Also I didn’t want to cut my 40’ down to 30, it not work or last then I have a 30’ instead of 40’. On the other hand, it’s a $6 item and if you already have the dynaglide and like to piddle around all year with your gear, I would say that your not really losing anything if it doesn’t work out.

When did this and replaced my dog leash cord with 330 paracord, that cord size was slightly bigger than my 50' of zingit, which I have on an automatic fly reel. I'm pretty sure I could've put the zingit on the dog leash and got it all to fit. The limiting factor I was running into was the bulkiness of the wound-up cord on the reel starting to rub against the insides of the leash body. I did not find I had to pre-wind the coil spring the way you described - I just slipped the coil between the halves of the inner spindle as I put it on - with the cord already wound around the spool. I was still getting decent winding action on about 38' of 330 cord.

I have a spare leash, I might experiment with the zingit.

I also like 2 factors on the automatic fly reel more than the dog leash: 1) It's geared, so you get an increase in tension on the coil for what you unwind, and therefore more force winding it back up. 2) You can effectively spin the spindle if you run out of tension, or want more - the leash tension is fixed.

 

[2Sloe]

When did this and replaced my dog leash cord with 330 paracord, that cord size was slightly bigger than my 50' of zingit, which I have on an automatic fly reel. I'm pretty sure I could've put the zingit on the dog leash and got it all to fit. The limiting factor I was running into was the bulkiness of the wound-up cord on the reel starting to rub against the insides of the leash body. I did not find I had to pre-wind the coil spring the way you described - I just slipped the coil between the halves of the inner spindle as I put it on - with the cord already wound around the spool. I was still getting decent winding action on about 38' of 330 cord. I have a spare leash, I might experiment with the zing it.
I also like 2 factors on the automatic fly reel more than the dog leash.

The Harbor Freight leash has a separate spool inside the leash so rubbing the body isn’t a problem. The problem with using thinner Dynaglide in it is oddly enough the lack of bulk, which causes you run out of spring tension. I wound the spring until it was completely compressed and it would not wind all 40 ft in starting with a bare spool. The larger the cord, the larger the overall spool diameter gets as the cord is taken in, and the more cord is taken up on every revolution of the reel/spring with that increasing diameter. With the spring fully compressed, it is only good for a set number of revolutions. With smaller cord, you aren’t taking up as much on every revolution because the diameter of the spool stays much smaller as the cord is taken in. You simply run out of revolutions before all of the cord is taken in. This is why I had to put the original cord back on the spool and then wind the Dynaglide over it. With a larger starting spool diameter, more cord winds in with every revolution and allows all of the cord to be taken up before you run out of spring tension. Have a feeling you will run into the same issue with 40’ of zingit, at least with the Harbor Freight leash. Can’t say about a different brand of leash. Not as big an issue if you use 30’ or less.

I agree that a fly reel would probably be a much better option as it is designed to wind in a large amount of thin line, whereas the dog leash is designed to wind in the diameter of cord that it comes with. Frankly, a manual reel would be just fine as long as you could set tension on the spool for climbing with it. I just didn’t want to spend a big chunk on a reel without understanding how or if it would work. Dog leash was cheap enough to be a throw away. If you give it a go, let us know how it turns out. Good Luck!

 

[Patriot]

I suck at DIY. I can hardly build a snowman.

yet I did a harbor freight leash before this season. And it lasted me all season and I went 3.5 months with at least 3 hunts a week so it held up well. Shows no signs of quit.

it’s light and effective. I swapped out the leash for dyneema off of EWO. I’m all in for probably $15 which is half a Doyle’s and from what I hear my setup is way lighter.

I sawed off the handle. Fits in a sys with 11m LB no problem.

 

[Iron_llama]

I suck at DIY. I can hardly build a snowman.

yet I did a harbor freight leash before this season. And it lasted me all season and I went 3.5 months with at least 3 hunts a week so it held up well. Shows no signs of quit.

it’s light and effective. I swapped out the leash for dyneema off of EWO. I’m all in for probably $15 which is half a Doyle’s and from what I hear my setup is way lighter.

I sawed off the handle. Fits in a sys with 11m LB no problem.

Do you happen to have any pictures of the inside? I imagine you removed the ratcheting / lock mechanism, is there anything to watch out for there?

 

[Patriot]

I don’t have pics but it’s a piece of cake. I undid screws to look inside and make sure I could cut the handle. Then replaced leash with dyneema. Then, and here is the key, wind the coil mechanism extra tight so it winds up all your dyneema. It won’t do 40 feet to match my repel rope but I think I am getting 25-28 feet of dyneema retraction. Which for me was enough never to run out of length all season.

i hunt with spurs a lot so a couple times this year I was way up there and never ran out of cord in the leash.

 

[JBDaddy]

Here you go... now illustrated.

Fresh from the Hazard Freight:


How she looks without her packaging:


Let's get those screws out and crack her open (after removing the screws, flip it over)


The inner round plastic cover over the coil spring can come off, but if you don't need to do this (like to retrieve the end, if it disappears from view), DON'T. If the oil-shmeared coil comes out, you're going to have a bad day. Note, it's not complicated. The very inner layer of the coil is just bent at an angle to slide between the blue plastic spindle halves.


If you want to replace the line with dyneema, 330 cord, whatever... remove the whole black reel, sliding it off the spindle, and flip it over - you'll see the knot that secures it:


Remove the original knot & cord, replace with your own if you want. Take out the thumb-button, lock & spring mechanism. You don't need it.

Here's 2 tips for putting it all back together:
1. Use more cord than you want to. Like, tie some of the original leash cord to the end of yours after its all wound back on the reel. If it won't fit, that's really ok for this - we're going to remove it in a moment anyway.
2. Use needle nose pliers to guide the inner bend of the coil back on the spindle when you slide the reel back down on the bottom half of the case.


Once the spring is anchored in place, pull the extra length of cord out and lay your intended cord through the outlet like the leash originally was. Clothespin, knot/anchor it outside that port somehow. The object here is to create some tension in the spring instead of leaving it "loosey goosey" just plopped back in. This will help rewind your cord.

I tied a loop in the end of my orange 330 cord to attach to a carabiner. I made sure the knot was big enough it wouldn't pull back inside the leash case, then used some extra leash to wrap around the reel a couple more times. When I'd tensioned the spring and got the knot outside the case, I snapped the halves back together and removed the extra leash.

Replace the halves together, replace the screws. You can see from the pictures above there's plenty of room to cut the leash handle off. We don't need it. I ran an extra bit of cord through the lock-button hole and tied it in a loop I can just hook on my saddle or pack. Then I wrapped mine in camo gaffer tape (which is already starting to come off and will have to replace it, maybe spray-paint it... dunno yet.


Voila, as they say.

 

[Iron_llama]

Excellent, thank you!